Page 61 of A Dangerous Heart
“I think I would’ve liked her,” he said quietly.
Clare was surprised to find a tear tracking down her cheek and quickly brushed it away. “You would have,” she murmured. “Victor wasn’t always like this, you know. There was a time when he tried to be better. He loved Anne. For a while, I thought maybe she could save him.” Her voice faltered for a moment before she continued. “But my father wouldn’t let him go. He called him weak. Kept dragging him into their schemes. And when Anne got pregnant, Victor got desperate. He tried…but honest work wasn’t enough. That’s when he gave in and decided to do a few jobs with the gang. A few jobs turned into a way of life, turned Victor into someone not even Anne could reach.”
She took a breath and continued, hugging the folded quilt to her chest. “After Grandpa Ferguson died, Victor and my father began using the farm as their hideout. As the years passed, Anne and I…we were happier when they were gone—we were trying to do our best by the boys. We never meant?—”
“I can see how much you love those boys, Clare,” Isaac said. “They’re fortunate to have you.”
Clare loosened her grip on the quilt and let out a slow, trembling breath. “I wish I could believe that. But sometimes I think being a Barlow means I can’t ever be…anything else. Anne married into the name, but I was born to it. It’s in my blood.”
Isaac’s gaze was steady, the heat of his presence filling the small space between them. “Anne took Victor’s name, sure, but she didn’t take his legacy. You said yourself she was a child of God first and last. And that’s what made her special—not thename, not the past. Don’t you think the same could be true for you?”
Her throat burned as she swallowed back the knot rising there. “It’s different for me, Isaac. I’ve done things—things Anne never would’ve even dreamed of.”
“You know Jacob’s story?” Isaac asked gently. “He was born clutching his brother’s heel, and his name meant deceiver. He lied, cheated—did plenty of things he wasn’t proud of. But when God got ahold of him, He gave him a new name: Israel. A name that meant he’d struggled with God and come out changed.”
Clare blinked hard, her vision blurring. “You think that’s true for me?”
Isaac’s mouth curved in a faint smile. “I think you’re more than the name you were born with, Clare. And I think God’s got a way of making people new no matter where they came from or what they’ve done.”
Clare set the quilt back on the cot. She faced Isaac, her fingers going to the scar on her wrist. “I just want Eli and Ben to have a chance at something better. Like the life you and your brothers had growing up here.”
“We had a good childhood.” Isaac stepped toward her and stilled her nervous movements with a hand over hers. “But it wasn’t perfect. Pa lost his temper at times.”
She liked having him close.
“You’re good with them. So patient. I want that for Eli and Ben.”
“They’ll have it.” As Isaac said the words, the air seemed to grow charged between them.
She couldn’t keep herself from voicing her hope. “When this is over, will we…” She hesitated. She didn’t deserve someone like him. But she wanted him. “Can we be a real family?”
Isaac felt the weight of Clare’s question. He pulled his hand from hers and looked away. He forced out the words jammed in his tightening throat. “I don’t know if I can—I honestly don’t know.” He knocked his hat off with one hand and ran the other through his hair. He had no idea if he could be what she needed or what the boys needed. His attention involuntarily shifted to the gun belt and the revolvers lying on the cot. How was he supposed to protect his own when he couldn’t even make himself strap on his gun belt?
“I understand,” she said softly, but he could clearly see the hurt on her face.
To hide it, she brushed past him and reached into the open chest by the cot. She pulled out one of his old dime novels. “What’s this?” she asked as she let the pages flip through her fingertips.
He couldn’t stop watching her. “Nothing,” he said absently.
Reaching inside the chest again, she pulled out another one. “There must be nearly a dozen books here.” A wry smile emerged on her lips. “Are you secretly an author? What’s your pseudonym?”
He scowled as heat flushed up his neck. “Hardly. Rebekah is the author around here.”
Clare’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
He sighed. “I used to read these kinds of books,” he said as she handed him the book with the cowboy on its cover. He scoffed. “They’re all about some made-up hero who swoops in and saves the day, then rides off into the sunset.” He laughed bitterly, tossing the book back into the chest.
“I knew a guy like that when I was a kid,” he said. “A deputy from town named Sam Nerat. Thought he was a real dime-novel hero. Made such a big impression on me that I made it my aim to be just like him.”
Clare’s expression went soft.
Nerat had been the fastest gun in Converse County. Back then.
“I practiced all the time with my revolver and some cans. So much that Pa got onto me for wasting ammunition. I musta been about fifteen when I came to town with Pa to fetch some supplies. He was busy with the store owner, and I wandered off down the street. Saw a coupla drunk cowhands terrorizing a stray dog.”
He shook his head at the memory of it. Imagining David doing something stupid like Isaac had made him realize how young he’d been. And that Drew had been right about what would come of Isaac’s arrogance some day.
He sighed and pushed the words out. He’d started this conversation. Might as well tell her all of it. “I drew on them. Shot the barrel of one of their guns before they could draw it.” He’d gotten lucky. The man had been drunk enough that his draw had been slow. “Scared them off.”
